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Rant: That one shutter curtain ribbon on a Pentax 67 that just would not cooperate
Had a Pentax 6x7 come in with a shutter capping issue. Figured it was a simple ribbon replacement, maybe an hour. Wrong. The old ribbon adhesive was basically fossilized. Spent three hours just cleaning the channel with solvent and a dental pick. Got the new ribbon in, but the tension was impossible. Too tight and it jammed, too loose and it dragged. My mentor always said to set it by feel, but I must have redone it fifteen times. The whole job took two full days. Is it better to just replace the entire curtain assembly on these when the glue gets that bad, or is the meticulous clean-out still the right call? What's your breaking point?
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richardh446mo ago
Yeah, that fossilized adhesive is the worst part lol. My breaking point is when the channel itself gets damaged from scraping, then a full curtain swap is faster. If the metal is still good, the clean-out sucks but it's still the right call.
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sethr116mo ago
You're right about the channel damage, @richardh44. Once that metal is bent, you're just wasting time trying to salvage it. A full swap is the only move that makes sense.
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lucas_jenkins5mo ago
Man oh man, @richardh44 you hit the nail on the head there. A buddy of mine spent a whole weekend scraping out an old frame only to find the channel had a hairline crack he missed, then had to swap the whole thing anyway. He said he would have saved himself the headache if he'd just checked the metal first like you said.
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